Tip 124: Serving the graveyard shift duty

I got this message from a friend and its my pleasure to blog on topics of interest to my faithful readers.

"Hi Philip ! You've been traveling round the world heh? I love hong kong as a holiday spot, been there twice but dunno about living there though. Hey, I find your postings on parenting tips, keep it coming yeah ! Did you post anything on how to survive night time feedings and getting back to work the next day?"

To be honest, I never really done too much graveyard shift duty. Usually, at least one of the parent needs to wake up at night to attend to the needs of the baby for 3 reasons: 1. to feed her. 2. to put her to sleep again and calm her down from her crying as she is ill. 3. to calm her down from her crying as she had a nightmare. It may come as a shock to many, but Haruka is still breastfeeding after 1 year old as my wife is a keen believer in attachment parenting. Will blog more on this, probably when Haruka has weened herself of breastfeeding, and I can provide an objective reflection of the pros and cons of breastfeeding for extended periods of time. The plus point here is that daddy need not be waking up at night to feed the baby. Actually, another practice in attachment parenting is that the baby sleeps next to the parents, instead of in a separate bed to promote closeness in the family relationship. Though I end up sleeping like a log when I do sleep, as I spent a lot of my few waking hours with productive activities (or try to do so). That leaves me only waking up 10% of the time when Haruka is crying. There were only 2 occassions when Haruka fell ill with fever and I recall, Haruka has never ever vomitted and caused too much of an unpleasant night for us to have to clean up the mess. If she does wake up at night because of a nightmare, it would be just a brief 5 seconds as either mummy takes her to comfort or Haruka would be quick to seek her mother's breast. I probably have many blessings to count as a daddy for having to care for a baby with little tantrums and my wife for doing most of the graveyard shift duty that has probably adjusted well to her sleep rhythm.

I do understand what the graveyard shift duty entails and the stress of needing to tend to the many tantrums of different babies, especially when they are ill at night. When I was young, my mother used to be a babysitter and when I was back from school, I did assist her sometimes. Or there were a few occassions when the baby's parents went on holiday and the graveyard shift had to be served by my mother. But, the dynamics of such a situation changes when you are married, do not have access to a babysitter (or do not believe in the need for one) and has full responsibility to attend to the needs of the baby. The wife needs to know that her husband cares and does not shirk off this responsibility to the wife alone. Hence, my previous post about the importance at least on weekends to do more housework to affirm the wife that the husband is trying to do his best to share the responsibility, eventhough he may have work demands during weekdays. Daddy also needs to be wise to balance between effectively contributing towards lightening the load, and letting mummy handle it if she has many preferences. A mother's instincts is always ahead of daddy's in terms of understanding the baby's needs and how to attend to it well and often times, daddy gets in the way by being clumsy (according to mummy) or simply not doing so well as he already had a long day at work. Daddy thus only needs to listen, acknowledge and suggest humbly what can be done (most of the time, the suggesting part can wait till the day time during a nice meal or at an outing when mummy is more receptive) to make mummy happy that she is doing everything well. Then, go to sleep.

I remembered one occasion when Haruka had fever, Tomomi asked me to fill the water pillow that we got for Haruka to reduce the temperature. I filled it and came back to the bedroom and Tomomi complained that it was still rather damp as I did not wipe the exterior dry enough. I came back and she said that Haruka does not need it anymore as I may disturb her sleep. So I went to sleep. My duty as a daddy probably became effective the next day when I had a chat with Tomomi about how Haruka was doing and affirmed her that she did well caring for her. Graveyard shift duties ,,, do them when you are really doing it effectively, else wait till next day to finish off the job.

Any pleasant or unpleasant stories to share about such graveyard shift duties? Please do, as it does encourage parents who are reading this blog.

(Photos show view from the Peak, Hong Kong, the litmus test of whether we should enter Madame Tussauds, the Peak by posing next to the free display of Bruce Lee, the many varieties of fish ball sold at Gresson street, Wanchai and Cheung Kong park, a small park next to St. John's Cathedral.)